Drink 192: Nog Day Afternoon

As a special holiday gift, today’s post comes in poem form.

Twas the day before Xmas and I read through our blog,

It’s been nigh a year since we first tried eggnog.

Not only that, as some did point out,

With less frequency come the drinks that we tout.

Screw this, it will take me all day to make a bunch of rhymes.  Our content can stand on its own without resorting to gimmicks.  These so-called parodies are often forced and awkwardly worded anyway.  It is sort of like the grammatical gyrations you have to go through to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition.  This is an example of the type of sentence to which I refer.  A friend once taught me a simple solution to this non-problem: Just add the word “a-hole” to the end of your sentence and it no longer causes heartache to any nearby wannabe English teachers.

Wrong: These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Right: These aren't the droids you're looking for, a-hole.

These aren't the grammar rules for which you are looking

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the real issue: Why do we use so many colons in our posts?  No, that isn’t it, although it is a legitimate issue.  The real issue is the seeming abandonment of  TBIAW.  While it might appear that Mrs. Bottle and I had given up, we haven’t.  We are just extremely lazy.  It turned out we were no longer willing to take the time to do a bunch of work without remuneration.  It also turned out that we are tired of our legions of fans clamoring for fresh posts so here we are.

We are rebooting TBIAW and expect it to be a smashing success.  Who among us hasn’t appreciated the recent reboots of Star Trek, Batman, James Bond, and Superman?  Well maybe not Superman, but you get the idea.  Reboots are so popular that they are rebooting Spiderman only 5 years after the last film from the previous incarnation.  I am looking forward to the reboot of the yet to be released Hunger Games. We rebooting up in here so much you’d think we’re running Windows ME. We aren’t quite sure what rebooting our blog entails, but I can tell you that it will be spectacular.

The rebooted TBIAW includes
low-resolution poor color balanced
photos taken with an iPod

In order to get into the reboot (and holiday) spirit, today we once again review eggnog. This time instead of the Southern Comfort nog, we had Organic Valley Organic Eggnong.   At first I thought the carton said that it was “orgasmic” eggnog.  I didn’t know if an orgasm was the cause or the effect of the cartoned cream and it wasn’t something I was willing to find out (although Orgasmic Valley sounds like a fun place to live). Fortunately I soon realized my mistake and poured myself a glass of eggy goodness.  And then I poured a ton of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in there.  Maybe a bit too much in my over-excitement about our reboot.  It was a bit like drinking creamed gasoline.  I added a bit more of the nog after I made some room in the glass and then it was quite delicious.  After I realized that a puny 10% alcohol content had me crying like a little girl I understood just out of practice I had become.

Overall Rating for Eggnog

Taste: 4

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 10 – 10% Alcohol

Ingredients

5.25 oz Eggnog

2 oz Captain Morgan Spiced Rum

Drink 127: Banana Fana Fo Oster

Our selection of a hurricane
glass instead of the prescribed
brandy snifter turned out to be
half-baked as well as half-full

Since it was a holiday yesterday, Mrs. Bottle and I decided to throw nutrition out the window and eat whatever we wanted.  To maximize our self-indulgence we decided to get a couple of milkshakes in the middle of the afternoon just because we could.  Then later that night we had our drink, the Banana Foster. The Banana Foster is made from spiced rum, banana liqueur, vanilla ice cream, and a banana.  It is kind of like an alcoholic banana milkshake.  It turns out that the prospect of having a milkshake when you still feel bloated from your previous milkshake is not the most appealing thing in the world.

While it looked like a milkshake on paper, it turned out to be more like thick room-temperature alcoholic banana milk.  In case you were wondering, that also isn’t that appealing.  Even though the Banana Foster is in the “Frozen Drinks” section of our Mr. Boston guide the drink wasn’t even cold, much less frozen.  I guess a couple of scoops of ice cream weren’t enough to cool down all of the other ingredients.  Maybe the drink used to be colder when this recipe was invented, but global warming climate change caused it to melt.  If I get time I will consult some scientists to determine the truth and then reject their findings if they do not match my political beliefs.

Flavor-wise, the drink was good as long as you are a banana fan.  It also has a dash of cinnamon on top which is always welcome.  If it had been a little bit colder, it probably would have rated a perfect five. On the other hand, if you are anti-banana, you probably won’t like the Banana Foster.  You also won’t like it that much if you want a strong drink, if you are lactose-intolerant, if you are allergic to potassium, or if your vessel was ever hijacked by Captain Morgan and you are still carrying a grudge. 

Also too warm

Overall Rating for the Banana Foster

Taste: 4

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 12 – 6% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Spiced Rum

0.5 oz Banana Liqueur

2 scoops Vanilla Ice Cream

1 Medium Banana, Sliced

Drink 83: Triangle Drink Hates Person Drink

Part of this glass disappeared
into the Bermuda Triangle

I know that it was just yesterday when Mr. Bottle informed all eight of our readers that we’d be discontinuing the daily blog exercise. Yet here I am, blogging the very next day because these new rules don’t really apply to me since we all know that I only blog once a week. Maybe we’d still have daily commentaries if I had picked up the slack and Mr. Bottle didn’t have to do six out of seven each week. But I’m busy with other activities like sleeping, playing computer games, and surfing the web for various household décor.

So instead of searching for new ottomans for my living room, I will now share the story of the Bermuda Triangle. I think we are all familiar with the legend of the other Bermuda Triangle, which covers the area from Bermuda to Puerto Rico to the Straits of Florida. Allegedly, a large number of aircraft and ships have disappeared there over the years possibly due to a supernatural or alien element. Oddly, several folks have suggested these reports are exaggerated. While I don’t have enough time to explain why believers in the Bermuda Triangle are loco (remember those ottomans), what I can tell you about the Bermuda Triangle drink is that it consists of peach schnapps, spiced rum, and orange juice. We were hoping to taste the spiced rum, but it was such a small amount compared to the other two ingredients that essentially it was just like drinking a Fuzzy Navel. And since we haven’t reviewed that beverage yet, you’ll just have to wait for the link to the Fuzzy Navel entry for another time.

Aside from the drink having three ingredients and a triangle having three sides, I’m not really sure the reason for the name. Maybe there are a lot of peaches and oranges in that area of the ocean. Maybe the spiced rum taste mysteriously disappeared. What I do know is that the most mysterious thing about the Bermuda Triangle drink was how it suddenly disappeared when I turned my back for just a few brief minutes. Mr. Bottle continues to claim no knowledge of its whereabouts but I have my suspicions…

We found a clue as to the name of the drink!

Overall Rating for the Bermuda Triangle

Taste: 4
Presentation: 4
Ease of Preparation: 4
Drinks Until Blackout: 13 – 7% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Peach Schnapps
½ oz Spiced Rum
3 oz Orange Juice



Day 5: Better than Rice-a-Roni

After the Scottish Guard left us a bit wanting, we searched our Mr. Boston guide for something that sounded like it might actually taste good.  It also had to be something we could make with ingredients we already had since neither of us wanted to make a run to the store. Mrs. Bottle found the Cable Car and there were no tickets required. 

Nice Outfits!

According to our guide, the Cable Car is a mix of spiced rum, triple sec, and lemon juice.  According to the guy who invented the drink for a San Francisco hotel, our recipe is wrong.  Since this blog is about Mr. Boston, we stuck with the wrong recipe.  We are sticklers for the rules when the rules suit us.  When the rules get in the way, we ignore them.

Since we have both Captain Morgan Original and Captain Morgan Silver we had to decide which one to use.  “Use the real one” said Mrs. Bottle.  I said I wasn’t sure what made the Silver version any less real than the Original version and she gave me a look that told me to just grab the Original and get mixing.  While I mixed, Mrs. Bottle whipped up some cinnamon sugar (1 Tbsp sugar to 1 Tsp cinnamon) and rimmed the chilled glass (naughty!). I learned afterwards that superfine sugar would have led to a more thorough rim job.  It still resulted in glass coated in sugary goodness.



Sprinkled with Cinnamon



I love almost anything with Captain Morgan in it and this drink was no exception.  The vanilla flavor of the rum really meshed well with the lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon.  When tipping the glass for a sip, you got a nice cinnamon aroma which made for an altogether delightful drink experience.  Mrs. Bottle was concerned that the sweetness would prevent her from a Cable Car binge, but I found that it is the real San Francisco treat.

Taste: 8

Ease of preparation: 5 – A little extra work for the rimmed glass

Presentation: 9 – Might have made it to a 10 if we hadn’t ignored the twist of lemon peel that was called for

Drinks until blackout: 5 – 26% alcohol in a delicious package could sneak up on you